• Email Us: [email protected]
  • Contact Us: +1 718 874 1545
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Medical Market Report

  • Home
  • All Reports
  • About Us
  • Contact Us

Active Volcanoes Persisted On Far Side Of The Moon For 1.4 Billion Years

November 16, 2024 by Deborah Bloomfield

The Moon was volcanically active for a long time, but if we look at its mysterious far side, we now know exactly how long that was the case. Thanks to samples collected by the Chinese Chang’e-6 probe, researchers have been able to estimate that this volcanic period lasted for at least 1.4 billion years.

Chang’e-6 is the only spacecraft that has brought back material from the far side of the Moon. Just shy of two kilograms (4.4 pounds) of material was collected and yet it is enough to provide a wealth of new insights as to what goes on beyond the part of the Moon we can see. One fragment is estimated to be 4.2 billion years old. This is the oldest basalt sample from the Moon whose age has been precisely measured – but that’s not all they found.

Advertisement

They also found 107 other fragments of basalt that instead are “just” 2.8 billion years old. These were local basalts from an eruption that must have taken place at the Chang’e-6 landing site. There is no evidence of this eruption from near-side samples, making this a very important finding; the lander had previously found evidence of magmatic structures there.

The far side of the Moon is very different from the near side. The near side has the beautiful dark plains of basalts, the maria, or seas. The far side, however, is covered in craters. The crust thickness among the two hemispheres is also different, as is the concentration of certain elements, such as thorium. 

Why there is such a dichotomy is not clear, but the two papers describing these results are certain that the answer goes through understanding the volcanism on the far side.

“The samples returned by Chang’e-6 provide a best opportunity to investigate the lunar global dichotomy,” senior author Professor Yi-Gang Xu, from the Guangzhou Institute of Geochemistry, said in a statement.

Advertisement

It is a sentiment shared by Professor Qiu-Li Li’s lab at the Institute of Geology and Geophysics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. “Unraveling the volcanic history of the lunar farside is crucial for understanding the hemispheric dichotomy of the Moon,” said Li in a different statement.

The volcanic event of 2.8 billion years ago happened locally and it is consistent with the estimation of the age of the landing site of Chang’e-6, determined by statistically counting the craters in that region. The crate-counting chronology was established on the lunar near side; the fact that it also works on the far side is a very exciting result.

The Moon was likely already stuck with one face always towards Earth by the time the volcanism on the far side stopped.

The papers are published in the journal Science and Nature.

Deborah Bloomfield
Deborah Bloomfield

Related posts:

  1. China Evergrande shares slide 6% in early trade
  2. Indonesia’s new carbon tax signals higher power costs amid calls for clarity
  3. Hangxiety: Why Might You Feel Anxious After Drinking Alcohol?
  4. 380-Million-Year-Old Fanged Fish Found In One Of The World’s Oldest Lakes

Source Link: Active Volcanoes Persisted On Far Side Of The Moon For 1.4 Billion Years

Filed Under: News

Primary Sidebar

  • We Could See A Black Hole Explode Within 10 Years – Unlocking The Secrets Of The Universe
  • Denisovan DNA May Make Some People Resistant To Malaria
  • Beware The Kellas Cat? This “Cryptid” Turned Out To Be Real, But It Wasn’t What People Thought
  • “They Simply Have A Taste For The Hedonists Among Us”: Festival Mosquito Study Has Some Bad News
  • What Is The Purpose Of Those Lines On Your Towels?
  • The Invisible World Around Us: How Can We Capture And Clean The Air We Breathe?
  • 85-Million-Year-Old Dinosaur Eggs Dated Using “Atomic Clock For Fossils” For The First Time
  • Why Shouldn’t You Kiss Babies? New Study Shows Even Healthy Newborns Can Become Severely Ill With RSV
  • Earth Has A New Quasi-Moon – And It Has Probably Been Around For Decades
  • Want To Kill Your Prey? Do It Feather-Legged Lace Weaver Spider Style And Vomit All Over Them
  • IFLScience The Big Questions: Are We In The Anthropocene?
  • The Wildfire Paradox Affecting 440 Million People Has As Worrying A Solution As You’d Expect
  • AI May Infringe On Your Rights And Insult Your Dignity (Unless We Do Something Soon)
  • How Do You Study Cryptic Species? We’re Finally Lifting The Lid On The World’s Least Understood Mammals
  • Once-In-A-Decade Close Encounter With Hazardous Asteroid 2025 FA22 Approaches
  • With 229 Pairs, This Beautiful Animal Has The Highest Number Of Chromosomes Of Any Animal
  • “An Unimaginable Breakthrough”: Loudest-Ever Gravitational Wave Collision Proves Stephen Hawking Correct
  • Exciting Martian Mudstone Has Features That Might Be Considered Biosignatures
  • How Long Did Dinosaurs Live? “It’s A Big Surprise To People That Work On Them”
  • NASA’s Mysterious Announcement: “Clearest Sign Of Life That We’ve Ever Found On Mars”
  • Business
  • Health
  • News
  • Science
  • Technology
  • +1 718 874 1545
  • +91 78878 22626
  • [email protected]
Office Address
Prudour Pvt. Ltd. 420 Lexington Avenue Suite 300 New York City, NY 10170.

Powered by Prudour Network

Copyrights © 2025 · Medical Market Report. All Rights Reserved.

Go to mobile version